AuthorTopic: Is my line banded or capped in some way? (Read 2442 times)

I had been running for over 128 days on my line until yesterday evening when the router decided to stop allowing telnet. My SNRM had dropped considerably over that time and my attainable was well below my actual. On the reboot and therefore resync I expected my SNRM to return to around 6db and the actual to drop to somewhere around the 55000kbps which was where the attainable was.

Now as can be seen on MDWS my attainable is 64036kbps but my actual is 59995kbps with an SNRM of 7.3db. With that attainable I expected the actual to be closer to that value with a 6db SNRM.

So am I banded or capped in some way, if so can anyone suggest how or why? I am on the Fibre large with TalkTalk. The sync value has been set at that value since earlier in 2016 following some problems with my line which were never fixed but have not recurred. What bothers me is that in the future if/when G.INP returns or the 3db sync is introduced I will not gain anything.

I have been banded at 35 since last summer and have had low ES for some time since. I am not sure it is ever going to be lifted without a reset by an engineer. I have ignored as not worth the effort for 5M.

As expected I got the usual response from TT The line is in sync with the predicted speed range and therefore nothing we can do. I've told them this is unacceptable and I want to escalate this but don't hold out much hope

@Sheepie the banding was done last summer when I was having big problems with the line and had 3 BTOR visits over a two month period, none of which I was charged for.

The 59995 was applied to my line following issues which ended with 3 visits from BTOR guys and at least two resets. The sync at the time things seemed to settle down was 59995which at the time was not unreasonable given the SNRM. The last of the issues were around the start of September, after that the line stayed up for 128+ days until I had the telnet issue.

I did believe my line was banded somehow back then but thought if that were the case the longer I left it up the more chance the banding would be removed by BT/DLM which obviously did not happen.

Now TT are basically washing their hands of it all because my actual sync is within the predicted range.

The engineer that did a DLM reset on my line last week did say that TalkTalk really do not like arranging engineer visits, they will do ANYTHING to avoid it in fact. It looks like all you need is a DLM reset to remove stuck banding, but an engineer visit is required for that.In my case, I had a stuck 60M profile for just a month but my ISP (Zen) agreed that it looked like it was stuck and arranged for an engineer visit, and even if they did not find any fault I would not be charged. As part of DLM reset he said he had get all line tests passed before that could be done.It was interesting that after he did DLM reset the line was on interleave, but he just called up some OR call centre and got them to change the line to remove all interleave - so they do have remote access to at least the DSLAM.

Going back to TalkTalk - I have a 2nd ADSL+ LLU line with them, and after a fault (sync was fine but ppp failing) it took me 4 weeks to convince them to send out an engineer - I had no internet access at all during this time and the only compensation they would give me was a months worth or subscription refunded (the month where I had no access!). Imagine if this had been my only line - I work from home! TalkTalk are cheap for a reason.........

I do remember reading a document somewhere where CPs can actually request banding.

So e.g. lets say a customer has a problematic line and has had multiple engineer visits, the CP might want to band the line to reduce problem reports. I dont know if the banding product was designed for that purpose, I just remember reading a document stating it can be requested.

As expected TT have refused point blank saying that DLM only sets the criteria and there is nothing which can be done. They say if I'm still not satisfied I can start an official complaint which is what I intend to do.

I am just wondering if anyone here knows how such a banding is done normally and is it always an arbitrary maximum which is set or a value which is always used no matter what the SNRM is? I suspect the former or there would be issues. Next question is basically can this only be done by intervention of BTOR staff or can DLM do it without manual intervention? Again I suspect the former but would like to know.

I am planning to argue my case on the basis that an arbitrary upper limit below the max allowed by my contract in unreasonable especially as if/when G.INP is re-enabled on ECI cabinets my line will be unable to see any benefit (my sync while G.INP was active was around 71000kbps and stable) and the same applies if the 3db SNRM is activated - no benefit to me.

My banding happened after a few high error days and one particullarly bad day with 1600 ES. I hadn't reported a fault so would be quite suprised if it was a BTOR intervention. It continued to be bad for ES a week after banding and then returned to normal on its own. It just seems to me that DLM applies banding, but once it is applied it is never removed.